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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25704058">Could I be the one you talk about in all your stories</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireiflora/pseuds/kireiflora'>kireiflora</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Functionalist Universe, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Pining, Yearning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:49:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25704058</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireiflora/pseuds/kireiflora</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what’s better than being in the functionalist hell orb in the sky? Having Hanahaki in the functionalist hell orb in the sky! Especially when your name’s Whirl.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tailgate/Whirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I wanna be the person that you think that I am</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/gifts">Polyhexian</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25084603">You know he dies at the end, right?</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian">Polyhexian</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello hello everyone I'm here with a hanahaki fic, my first actually. Which is weird. I mean technically the brainstorm was sorta one, it was connected to one. </p><p>Anyway I love hanahaki and suffering and Whirlgate so Whoop whoop here we go. Starts near the end of chapter 5.</p><p>Sorry to anyone that followed me for literally anything else I didn't mean to like robots but here I am. I was supposed to be writing alta fics lol.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You fall in love with the funky little spy bot.</p><p>It’s the beginning of the end.</p><p>You know the moment you stop admiring him and start loving him. The moment he’s not just a badass spy but someone important to you instead. Or rather, the moment you realize these things, they've been true before that.</p><p>It’s the moment he gives you a nickname. Birdy. You take it and you hold it close to your spark, which feels overhot and too big for its casing. You want to carve the name into your chassis but you can’t, all you can do is hold it tightly to your spark. Birdy. It sends a gentle warmth through your frame, you feel light. Birdy.</p><p>In the next moment, there is pain. You come crashing down as it radiates out from your spark as though you’ve just been stabbed but you’re alone in the hall outside the meeting room, as you always are. You look down and check and there’s no hole or sign of anything having actually happened but the pain doesn’t even waver, a strong sharp biting pain that feels like your spark is trying to tear itself in two. If anything it grows with every passing moment.</p><p>This isn’t what love is supposed to be like. You’ve never been in love before but <em>this</em> cannot be what people go on about. You dig through your memory, hunting for something that might explain this, were you poisoned? Four always makes you test the new rations that arrive and you thought he was just being dumb but maybe there was something to it. It would be just your luck to end up assassinated in his place.</p><p>You stumble across a word. Hanahaki. Anode had mentioned it off offhandedly once. A parasitic plant that had landed spectacularly and filled a large chunk of the planet with its spores for a time before returning to a more plant-like state. It had seemed random at first, who got sick, but then they realized the cause.</p><p>Unrequited love.</p><p>Of course. <em>Of course,</em> you couldn’t just feel love you could never act on and just live miserably with that. No, it had to be one way and deadly. You are Whirl. For a moment you got so swept up in the fantasy of being Birdy you forgot Birdy didn’t exist, only Whirl, and Whirl can’t ever have nice things. You’re too terrible a person to have earned the right to be Birdy, to be someone the little guy could love. </p><p>You’re Whirl, and that means you’re too fucked up to know what happiness even is.</p><p>You got to taste it for a second, in your delusional little world where Motherfucker Unlimited and Birdy meet and like each other and have happy years. Your fantasy where things end happily, and you get to see the stars again and fly again, really fly. But that’s not how your story ends, it ends in discovery and gore. </p><p>You’ve known this since the last time you saw Anode. You’ve known it in every cable and deep in your tanks. That’s what these years have been building to, finally able to help the resistance only to die in the end. You’re an idiot for forgetting that even for a moment.</p><p>You shift your frame to look at your spark, just to be sure, and there the flowers sit. Red and white poppies entwined together smack in the center, two large mauve carnations spread among their stems, something red and bunched up hidden between the two, and a few small snapdragons nestled in front of that. That seems about right. Poppies for love, carnations for the hopeless fantasy of this ending well, and snapdragons for the reason why, deception. As you watch the snapdragons seem to perk up and multiply and the pain in your spark increases a notch as they feed on it. You jerk your frame back into its proper place, looking down the hall to make sure nobody was there, that nothing had fallen out. </p><p>And then you just sit there and think about how utterly fucked you are.</p><p>There’s no way to know how much time you have left. For you, who can't leave the hell orb, this is fatal. There’s no removing it, even if you wanted to, its not even an option. There’s only one thing left you can do, and that’s getting as much information as you possibly can from these fuckers before you kick the bucket.</p><p>You forget to properly recharge at all until four is already walking out of the room, but you know you have to just power through anyway. Spark chamber aching all the while. It’s a plant, it shouldn’t be able to do anything to you but that’s just what your life is, a comedy of errors and things that shouldn’t be able to happen but do anyway.</p><p>It won’t be enough, no matter what you manage to get, it won’t make up for all the data you could’ve gotten if only the stupid plant hadn’t existed. If you hadn’t been so dumb to fall for the first person to show you kindness in decades. It’s all fake anyway, the Birdy he thinks he knows is just the rambling of a mech who had been alone in enemy territory for too long. It’s not you. It will never be you.</p><p>You don’t bother with trying to trick yourself, trying to tell yourself you’re not in love with him, you’re not that delusional. He wormed his way through your shields and planted himself firmly in your spark before you realized what was happening. And now you will die, never even knowing his name.</p><p>There’s no way you can tell him. When you die of this he’s gonna feel shitty enough as is, without even knowing who it's for. It might be a death sentence for him too. At the very least you’re abandoning him in hostile territory, and you know what that's like. Without a goal, trapped in the hell orb with not a friend in sight. He deserves better than that, you should probably give him a heads up he needs to get out of here. Not immediately though, it’s too close to the message for him not to think they’re somehow related.</p><p>So you respond the way you would’ve if you didn’t have a parasite in your spark. Telling him how much you appreciate what he’s done for you, reading all your rambling, giving you a nickname. You wish you could be Birdy. This mech that Unlimited likes and wanted to bring some form of closure to. But you’re not, you’re never going to be him, you never could. Birdy is a soft name for a mech who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, not you who actively helped the functionalists.</p><p>A few weeks pass as normal, listening to whatever Four will tell you, daring to start a conversation a couple of times, making notes of all of it. If panic legs thinks it odd you included a lot of speculation for the future last week he doesn't show it. Nothing ever changes in the hell orb, but, you’re changing. Your vents are being clogged up, your fuel pumping slower, it burns like acid, but you clamp down on everything. Flowers do not belong up here, you don’t let them slip out your vents or the cracks in your plating. You hold yourself so closely put together it’s a wonder you manage to walk normally while your vents work at a whisper, trying desperately to keep you alive. </p><p>You find snatches of time to tear clawfuls from your frame when Four is busy. On the days Unlimited isn’t in the commissary you shove flowers in the bins while Four looks at his datapad, trusting that nobody will bother looking on days other than Thursday, and wouldn't know where they came from anyway. The flowers are already shoving themselves up your intake so you down your phos quickly, forcing flowers down with it, all it ever does it make your tanks roll unpleasantly. You do keep it down at least.</p><p>You wish you could tear out some of your internal weaponry but there’s nowhere to put it, no time to cover the sound of that. It’s a shame, it would give the flowers some breathing room, and you more time.</p><p>The flowers multiply and the one you couldn’t see reveals itself as amaranthus, for hopelessness. That sums up your situation quite nicely. The snapdragons seem to die out, as you stop pulling them out only two weeks in. Instead, they’re replaced by rainflowers, which only makes you scoff. There’s no atoning left, you’re going to die before you can atone enough for all the terrible things you’ve done.</p><p>You just have to hold on for as long as you can. You know your messages for Unlimited are becoming less coherent as you rush to say everything you want to say without making it look like that’s what you’re doing. The average length of messages has tripled. All while flowers strain against your frame, trying their best to break you apart at the seams and show themselves to the world. </p><p>Energon starts dribbling slowly to your vents during week four, which is harder to hide. It's an excruciating feeling, as it oozes between the flowers that are stuffed so close together it’s a wonder even liquid can get past them. They do work to absorb some of it at least, having been dried out by the hot air trying to vent. The only thing you can do is shut off your vents entirely, giving everything no crack to force itself out of, backing the flowers and the fluid up further in your systems. To say nothing of what you’re doing to those systems in general. You silenced your alarms by the end of week one, but you can guess at what they’d be telling you. Too hot, pressure too high, these are things you know. Maybe something’s starting to fail, nothing important yet, you're still moving.</p><p>When you have the time to tear them out they come out energon soaked now, and it spills onto your frame as you pull, you’re running out of time before someone notices. Grabbing at drier flowers, you use them to soak up as much of the spilled energon as you can before you shut your vents up tight.</p><p>By week five there’s a pressure building in your helm that nothing relieves. You’re worried about that one, you can’t see anything going on there, you don’t know if there’s a petal poking out somewhere to give you away, you can only hope there’s not.</p><p>That week you drop off the last normal drop you’ll give him. Next week is the warning for him to leave. You can surely hold out that long. Luck was on your side for once, there are so many data slugs out there, but you made it to that conversation, that warning will make it out. A stray thought drifts through your mind, that now you’ve done enough, you can rest. Data slugs…there’s just so many of those guys. There's probably no other singular group you can save like them. </p><p>Maybe you did manage to atone before you ran out of time. It’s a nice fantasy at least. </p><p>You follow four to the meeting room, and gratefully prop yourself up on the slab to charge. At least you don't feel pain while you’re charging. One day soon you’ll just turn off that system, or maybe it’ll give out in the strain, that would be nice.</p><p>If only you could be Birdy. Maybe it wouldn’t be unrequited love. If you could be Birdy you wouldn’t be dying, and you would fight ever the harder to make it out of here and meet the little marshmallow.</p><p>But you’re Whirl, and panic legs would never love you if he knew the truth of who you are. Next week you’ll tell him he needs to run, you’ll save him before you succumb to the blooms.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter two will be posted on my birthday, fingers crossed at least. It's only barely started but that's the goal. Birthday present to myself.</p><p>OH Right I nearly forgot flower meanings! My b. I tried to find at least two sources for each of these, but whatever, this is what they mean in this fic.</p><p>Red Poppy - Success and love<br/>White Poppy - Peaceful sleep<br/>Mauve Carnation - Dreams of Fantasy<br/>Amaranthus - hopelessness<br/>Rainflower - I love you back, I must atone for my sins, I will never forget you.<br/>Snapdragon - deception</p><p>;) see ya'll in a couple days. Hopefully.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. In the end the person they made in me breaking and breaking and never pick up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Tailgates in the vents you guys, I don't have to say anything else.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME :D</p><p>I listened to too many songs writing this so I'll just list some at the end.</p><p>I'm really proud of a lot of this, but especially the first half.</p><p>Shoutouts to sky for not betaing, but not, not-betaing. And talking me out of a couple dumb things.</p><p>Rewind wasn't even supposed to be in here but he just refused to leave Tailgate alone lol</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You’re in the vents, crawling your way through all the walls hoping they don’t set them on fire. Making your way to the only place Whirl is alone, the only time he has to recharge. You hate to interrupt his rest but this is <em>important</em>. This is about your amica and saving him.</p><p>Finally, <em>finally</em>, you find the vent you can look down and see him through.  You press up close, trying to get a good look at him but the slats are too close together, picture is too broken up, all you can really tell for sure is he’s plugged in.</p><p>“Whirl.” you hiss, the mech below not responding. “<em>Whirl</em>!” you stress a little louder, not wanting to draw attention but desperately wanting his attention before you just drop in on him, he’s a guard for a reason after all. “Birdy!” you try again, a little desperate.</p><p>He remains unmoving.</p><p>You grunt in irritation, wishing you’d gotten there earlier but there’s nothing for it but to either give up, or try to throw something at him. You look down the hall as best you can before carefully levering the grate off. It's only once you look at him without obstruction that you see something that makes your previous terror nothing but a memory.</p><p>He’s grey.</p><p>He’s grey and unmoving and pink energon is making thin streaks down his plating, crumpled flowers poking up from between the seams. His whole frame seems almost ripped apart from the inside, everything jerked out of place just enough that not a piece of him looks right. What takes most of your attention at first is the large flower where his optic once was, now shattered onto his chassis and the floor. It’s the only blossom not coated in energon, an asphodel, your memory supplies. There’s a quiet drip as the energon falls off his frame onto the pristine white tile.</p><p>Your optics move from the asphodel to the love-lies-bleeding in his rotors and you almost want to laugh at the fitting flower but all you can do is scramble out of the vent, tumbling to the floor only somewhat controlled. You blindly shove the grate back into its place and your pistol into subspace as your pedes cross from the wall to Whirl. To your Birdy.</p><p>Your hands raise without your conscious decision, gently pressing a hand to his helm. “Birdy…” it’s a whisper quieter than your exvents. There’s not the slightest flicker of life. “Birdy please….” your voice cracks as your other hand cups the opposite side. “You’re okay…you have to be okay. I can’t…” you can’t lose both of them. You don’t even know what’s happened to him, this can't possibly be some weird assassination. “Whirl, stop…stop playing! This is just a holoform right?” your hands fall from his helm as your legs give out and you hit the floor softly, your spark screaming out its pain deep in your chassis. </p><p>His energon is on your hands now but all you can do is stare up at him, the asphodel staring down at you like a terrible parody of his optic. “Birdy…” you plead with the empty shell. “Birdy we were supposed to meet up again, and-and we’d….you’d…” you don’t even bother trying to stop the tears. “My name is Tailgate, Birdy,” you say, like a prayer to the flower. </p><p>A drop of energon falls from the asphodel, down onto your brow. You feel it roll down over your faceplate. </p><p>You’re sitting right outside the council meeting room, you don’t have a clue how long they’ve been in there or how much longer they might be. You force the tears to slow, reaching out towards Rewind. You don’t bother with coms, you can’t pull yourself together enough for that. You just send a notification without any bells and whistles. </p><p>
  <strong>In the storm we meet as equals, afraid and alone. And though tomorrow, again, we are a wolf and a wanderer, I forget not my debts, and I will sing the moon your song of her.</strong>
</p><p>He tries to raise you on coms but you block him out. You can’t….he’s your amica but you can't talk to him right now. Not only is Whirl dead, but your amica is also as good as. Rewind knows Whirl’s dead, that’s good enough for now. He can spend time with his conjunx while your mourn who you could’ve been yours. The asphodel above you is turning pink with energon, and you invent slowly, carefully, and push yourself to your pedes. You look over his frame again, seeing poppies that could've been any colors but are now stained pink, carnations just the same and something that’s too soaked in energon to tell <em>what</em> it was.</p><p>Looking down at your hands, you see how pink smeared they are, more is on your helm, and you know he would hate what you’re going to do next, but you can’t not. You invent a few times, calming yourself, hiding away the pain in your spark. You don’t even know if you care to survive this but Birdy would want you to so you shall try.</p><p>Hesitantly you cross the few steps to the door, raising your hand and, after a bracing moment, knock firmly.</p><p>There was no sound in the hall but it feels like it somehow goes even quieter, before the door is jerked open by Four, who’s looking up at Whirl height. “Whirl wha-” he cuts himself short on seeing no one.</p><p>“I just found him like-that!” you cry, gesturing to where Whirl charges, as he looks down at you. Pulling the panic you’d felt when you learned data slugs were next and pouring it into your words. “I don’t know what happened but-” you cut yourself off, frame shaking in what you hope is apparent fear of blame.</p><p>Four’s face had started annoyed, assuming Whirl couldn't have a good reason for interrupting but as his optics land on his dead bodyguard his posture stiffens up, and he walks out of the room, not sparing you another glance as he moves over to Whirl. He pauses in front of him for only a moment before you watch with a small amount of horror as he gives him a firm prod, sending him crashing to the floor in a mess of flowers and smeared energon and screeching metal.</p><p>You only just stop yourself from moving forward to give him a shove in return, keeping yourself firmly planted in place. You can’t move until the council either decide you did this, or you’re free of blame.</p><p>All Four does for long minutes is stare down at the remains of the helicopter, and you notice other members coming to the door, peering out in interest. They all seem to watch for a few moments before returning to their meeting, possibly thinking up plots to get rid of Four now that he's guardless. </p><p>At long last Four raises his helm, optics quickly landing on you, where you haven’t moved from the door. Your spinal strut straightens and you look back at him with all the fear you can put into your expression. </p><p>“Fear not little one, I know you did not do this. This is the work of an old disease. It survives in pockets on Cybertron, what’s more concerning is how he came into contact with it.” as he speaks he crosses over to you, looking not quite at you. “Go clean yourself, and get back to work. Thank you for alerting me.”</p><p>Then he enters the door and closes it again, leaving you alone with Whirl in the hall, not even seeming to call anyone to deal with the body. It feels wrong to leave him there like that, just crumpled up on the floor, but you can’t do anything now that they Know. You’re several steps down the hall before your grief catches up with you and your vents clamp shut as you realize: you can’t get your innermost. Whirl’s not going to have a funeral, or if he does you won't be invited, so this is the only chance you will have and you don’t just have your innermost chilling around in subspace, and you can't just pull it out here in this hall. </p><p>Your optics land back on him and the renewed grief is so strong you stumble into the wall, staring at him again. The asphodel is on the floor now, still connected by its stem. The new position has revealed so many more flowers and you realize the unidentifiable one are rainflowers. You think the poppies might be red and white you absorb this information like a sponge without bothering to process it. You try to think of what you could do, you can’t give him your innermost as he deserves, can you do anything for him? </p><p>You can’t.</p><p>There's nothing you can do, you know he’s an atheist so it's not like he would care but, there’s nothing you can do to show how much you loved him, it's too late. He didn't even know your name. You shouldn’t have signed it motherfucker unlimited, you should’ve just used your name instead of his hilarious nickname, it would've been a risk but at least he would’ve known, the only thing he ever truly wanted from you was to know your name, it was one of the first things he said. You couldn't even give him that.</p><p>It takes all the strength you have left in your spark to turn away from his crumpled form, continuing back down the hall and making your way to the showers, stiffly going through the motions, watching the pale pink water flow down the drain, slowly turning clear and taking the last traces of Whirl with it.</p><p>Your frame feels heavy as you force it out from under the spray, optics still locked on the drain as you dry off, until you force yourself back out the door and through the halls back to where you should be. Your hands do the work, without a thought going through your head. All you can see is your Birdy, standing, covered in flowers, like slow motion the way he fell to the ground, the way nobody even <em>cares</em> about any of it. </p><p>Rewind is still pinging you, trying to get your attention. You can’t muster up the will to respond beyond pinging back. He knows your alive, that will have to be enough for at least a few hours.  They’re not going to blow his chip tonight, they hadn't even been 100% committed to it quite yet. Rewind still has time, unlike Whirl.</p><p>Your shift ends with no fanfare, and you stumble onto the train, shoulder to shoulder in a sea of people nobody cares about. The train feels too small, the mecha closer than usual, you get off a stop early, preferring to just walk the rest of the way rather than remain in there.</p><p>Just as you turn to start walking your comm line snaps on, and Rewind’s voice blasts through. [Overflow, what is going on?] he’s trying to sound casual but there’s a pain and fear that you can hear.</p><p>Part of you wants to be left alone to wallow, but you force yourself to change direction. [I’ll come over.] you close the line before he responds.</p><p>You change into your alt mode and go at a casual pace, you’re not in a rush to get to him. You maybe should be, his days are numbered, but you are numb. When you get there he’s opening the door before you’re even back in root mode and his concerned face is what finally does you in and you throw yourself at him, trusting your amica to catch you. </p><p>“They….he….” you struggle to make your thoughts coherent and Rewind just pulls you in, closing the door quietly and dragging you over to the sofa, pulling you over and on top of himself. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he replies, just holding you and letting you cry.</p><p>Hours pass while you shake and sob and quietly reread so many of the letters he had given you. You take every detail and hold them close to your spark as though they could bring you joy, but all they do is make the pain stronger. All these scattered pieces of the person he was, that nobody will ever know about. Down in the caves and here on the surface people will celebrate his death like it was a good thing, like it helps them somehow. </p><p>Because if whispers start that Whirl was one of them you’re as good as dead. Rewind would be too but your amica is the dead walking already. You won't even have any information to pass to Dominus, you’ll just be trapped in this monotonous daily job, because Rewind was right, you’d need to be checked out before you could pull a runner and you can’t do that before his death without causing his death, and you don’t know how to set that up after.</p><p>In one day your world has come apart at the seams, just like Birdy did. The one your spark wanted to be bonded to, dead, the hope you had for your amica, gone, the good work you were doing to save others? Gone.</p><p>Rewind seems to be able to tell when you’re finally coming down from your grief because he says; “This changes things.” softly, like he doesn’t want to startle you. “Are you compromised?”</p><p>You pull your thoughts together from where it feels like they’ve filled the room. “I don’t know. I just….he was covered in flowers.” </p><p>He jerks slightly at that, looking away from the ceiling and down to you. “What?”</p><p>“Covered in flowers, like he was burst open from the inside-” you stop bothering to try and explain, sending him one of the images seared into your mind. “I don’t think they knew anything.”</p><p>Your amica is quiet for a long minute, “I think…you might be okay. We can-I can arrange for a check-up for you. We just need a few hours.”</p><p>You stare at him, uncomprehending, before it clicks what he’s saying. You can both run, you have lost Birdy but you might save your amica anyway. Rewind didn’t run so he wouldn’t implicate you so you could get information from Whirl, without Whirl, there’s no reason for either of you to stay.</p><p>The burning hope is bitter on your glossa. </p><p>You wanted to save Rewind, yes, but you didn’t mean to give up Birdy to do so. That’s not what you’d asked for.</p><p>Maybe it was too much to ask for both of them. At least you didn’t have to try and pick between the two.</p><p>Rewind introduces you to his conjunx, explaining that he’s going to go down to Anode, get somewhere safe, and send word back to you through Dominus where you need to go tomorrow as soon as possible. You’re both going to make it out, he’s alive in a way he hadn’t been earlier but you can't bring forth much excitement for him. You are glad he’ll live, really, you just wish the cost wasn't so high.</p><p>He rushes out the door, moving quickly to get things started, and you make your way back to your habcel, plugging in for the couple hours you have left of your rest shift.</p><p>When you come online you’re not rested at all really, but shove yourself upright and start heading out the door. You come to a stop at the tide of mechs milling about. “What's going on?” </p><p>“Surprise medical screening on our way out.” a mech you recognize by the red visor as Backdrive replies. “But first they’re screening ones on their way in, seems backwards to me to slow down the whole thing.” </p><p>Your spark jolts slightly, before you remember what Four said yesterday, it was some old disease he'd had that killed him, they’re checking everyone to make sure the council isn’t at risk. After all, it got one of their bodyguards, they could be next.</p><p>You force yourself to relax, you’ll be fine, you don’t have any weird flowers, it might’ve just been something that was dormant on Birdy for a long time. On the positive side, this might slow things down enough you go straight from here to Rewind. Your frame aches for his hold. You refuse to think about anything else.</p><p>The whole thing moves in bursts before coming to stops at random intervals, and as you get closer to the doors you start to get worried. They’re pulling people out at seemingly random, ushering them into another room before letting the line move on, there's even Star Saber at the door, looking down at all the minibots to ensure everything moves smoothly, sword held loosely but ready in his hand closest to the door, blocking it whenever they move to pull someone out of line. </p><p>As you count nine in front of you in the queue you start praying again, begging for Rewind to contact you before you get up there. All you need is an excuse to bolt if you get tagged, but you can't put Rewind in danger by going before you know he’s safe from the obsolescence chip.</p><p>Seven gets pulled out of the line.</p><p>Four…</p><p>Two…</p><p>There’s no message for you as you move forward, pausing like all the minis before you while it does a quick scan. You don’t even know where the readings pop up, but the sword moves in front of the door, and you’re shoved towards the side door. </p><p>You give Rewind a moment where you stumble at the shove, but still, there is no alert, and you walk stiffly over and through the door that shuts behind you with a quiet click. </p><p>It’s a dark windowless room, tall but not overly large. All that’s in here is scattered groups of minibots, whispering among each other, nobody sure what’s going on. You haven't made friends with any of them, but you move through the small crowd until you stand between a couple of groups, seeming like you could be part of either of them at a glance.</p><p>Time crawls by, and you resist the temptation to read Birdy’s letters over yet again, you need to be alert, not distracted by grief, for whatever comes next. Minis continue to shuffle in, in various stages of fear. Everyone's comparing stories, trying to figure out what thing all of them have but nobody seems to be coming up with anything that works for more than a dozen at a time.</p><p>At long last, the door opens a final time, and Star Saber walks in. There’s a whisper that fills the room, some fearful, some grateful their friends aren’t in here.</p><p>“You have all tested positive for traces of Hanahaki.” Star Saber’s voice fills the room, dark and heavy with meaning, easily overpowering all other noise. There’s worried shifting through the crowd as the silence stretches on. “You have all been relieved of duty, except for whichever one of you infected Four's bodyguard.” </p><p>Not even Star Saber’s presence can prevent the whispers that go through the room at that, his face twitches but he doesn’t kill anyone, you notice everything at a distance after the words infected Four’s bodyguard. Anyone in this room <em>could</em> be the cause of Whirl’s death, but, how many would he actually have come into contact with? You, of course, and he's not Star Saber who needlessly assaults the cleaners, <em>is</em> there anyone else he came into contact with? Or did you cause this? </p><p>Is Birdy dead because of you?</p><p>He only came into contact with you the once, has he been slowly dying for two years without ever telling you? Or was it the data slug you slipped him? Tainted with whatever Hanahaki is, spreading to him when you meant to give him joy. You don’t let your conflict show on your face as your tanks churn nauseatingly, this <em>is</em> your fault isn't it? </p><p>Rewind still hasn't messaged you.</p><p>You have whatever terrible disease killed Birdy, and you’re probably the only person he’s touched in decades. You probably have some weird old strand that died out ages ago, giving him worse odds, if there was even a chance he could’ve survived in the first place. You fell in love with him and selfishly decided to be closer to him and now he’s dead at your hands. The pink staining your hands just hours ago was more true than you knew. Birdy, who made you laugh and smile in these long two years of living in the cog, is dead because of you. You showed your appreciation by <em>killing</em> him.</p><p>Star Saber’s voice is still speaking in the background but you can barely hear it, not a single word is processing, your audials might as well be offline. The tides are shifting around you but all you can do is stare blankly ahead.</p><p>Did they know it was you already yesterday? Did they follow Rewind? Is your amica dead? Did Whirl’s death not even manage to save him? Is that why there's no message? You’re not going to escape from this but a message would let you know Rewind still lives. That one good thing came from this.</p><p>Star Saber is standing in front of you now, and you crane your head up to look at him.</p><p>“Overflow. Four says you came into contact with his guard, twice. The second time, <em>you</em> approached <em>him</em>.” he says, voice as firm and absolute as time itself. “Do you have anything to say for yourself before you join the Allspark?” his sword raises slightly, the slightest glimmer of light in its core.</p><p>Or maybe that’s the light glinting off the tears you’re holding back.</p><p>“I’m sorry…” you choke out, the truth you feel in your very core, allowing the tears to fall.</p><p>
  <strong>You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Go to the third walf and…</strong>
</p><p>The notification keeps scrolling, giving you coded instructions to reach a place that no longer matters. The relief that Rewind is yet alive makes you stumble, and the tip of Star Sabers blade rests at your chassis for a moment before guiding your helm back up.</p><p>“Primus forgives you,” he says softly, for him at least.</p><p>You shut your optics off and pull up the image of Whirl as you slipped him the data slug, the surprised but not distressed or angry expression is the softest you’d ever seen him.</p><p>“...Birdy…” you finish with a whisper, apologizing to the air for everything that happened and would never happen all at once.</p><p>There's a moment of pain as the sword breaks through your visor-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:D wasn't that great? (Told ya Rewind lived Sky! I kept my word)</p><p>I told you I'd get you back for the sad whirl hanahaki nate, I think I did that with this.</p><p>Anyway flower meanings cause guess what bitches, they all had double meanings! I don't think tailgate knows any of the meanings like Whirl did, he just recognizes them.<br/>Red poppys can also mean death, white ones mean funerals. They did all the work for me, I was super excited about that. East vs west baby.<br/>Asphodel means my regrets follow you to the grave, which was the main focus for tailgate. Having it come out the optic was particularly inspired imo.<br/>Amaranthus are also known as love-lies-bleeding so tailgate knew it by that name which was Also perfect, and their secondary meaning is heartbreak instead of hopelessness.<br/>Rainflowers just lean more into the I love you back/will never forget you for tailgate.</p><p>For songs I started with some random ones, then settled on how to save a life before remembering that who knew by pink exists and wrote a lot to that before some more random ones for the end.</p><p>Okay so now that the emotions won't be ruined by this, before I even got Tailgate in the Room I was wondering what his last words would be, and, My gut instinct was 'My name....is Motherfucker Unlimited.' major shoutouts to Sky for agreeing it would completely ruin the mood, but its just so on brand I couldn't not mention it. So instead it turned into a plea for forgiveness which is much better.</p><p>Oh! if you want Nate, I will delete the quote of yours, I just couldn't not use it at least at first lol.</p><p>Gosh that image of whirl, standing, bleeding, flowers, torn apart just a bit, gaaah i wish it existed. Tailgate both holding him and also on his knees is *chefs kiss*.</p><p>Also fun fact, I'm pretty sure the moment Four pushes him over is the sentence I wrote as it turned midnight.</p><p>Okay now I'll get to work on the happy hanahaki.</p>
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